


By silver streams

by symphorine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Asexual Kuroo Tetsurou, Established Relationship, Fluff, Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphorine/pseuds/symphorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bokuto, Kuroo and Yachi decided to take some time for themselves and their relationship, and spent a week at Yachi's grandparents' house. Okay, it was just so they could get time <i>alone</i>, away from all their (a little bit too intrusive) friends.</p><p>Eventually, they have to go back to Tokyo, but where's the harm in taking the long way there?</p><p>(honestly just fluff)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I place this in the summer break of Yachi's second college year (which means Bokuto and Kuroo's last year). The bit of backstory not written (yet) is that when Yachi moved for college she found herself being Bokuto and Kuroo's neighbor, and time and feelings happened, and they got together around the end of Yachi's first year after spending months of being disgustingly domestic ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll write that too, one day.

Yachi stumbled out of the house, bringing the last of the bags with her, and handed them to Bokuto.

“Kuroo's making sure we didn't forget anything,” she said, looking back towards the house, squinting under the mid-afternoon sun.

It was her grandparent's house, but it would be empty once they left – her grandparents were staying with her mother for a few days. She had only spent a week here with Bokuto and Kuroo, but she kind of missed it already. It was nice to have some time to themselves, without any other obligations. Though, in that regard, the near future held much of the same. She looked back at the small, red car Bokuto was loading.

“You're sure it will hold until we're there?” she asked, with legitimate concern – one of the back doors had almost fallen off just that morning.

“We'll just have to be careful and not push her too much,” Bokuto shrugged, finally closing the trunk. “She's never abandoned me yet, anyway.”

“Even if it stopped dead in the middle of the road, you'd say that,” Kuroo snorted behind them, swinging the keys around his finger. “All ready?”

“Nothing left in the house?”

“Not that I could see,” Kuroo shook his head, making his way around the car, “but it's not like it's lost forever anyway.”

He slowed for a second, just long enough to brush his lips against Bokuto's cheek, and then went to sit behind the wheel. Bokuto followed suit, climbing in the backseats, and Yachi glanced one last time at the house before she joined them. She'd been voted copilot, as Bokuto got sick if he read in the car, so she dug out the map they'd brought and looked for the path they'd highlighted beforehand.

Kuroo didn't need her indications to start, though, and as soon as they were all inside, he started the car.

“Say bye to your bed, guys, cause we won't have any for the next days!” he exclaimed cheerfully, rolling his window completely down.

The wind, though it couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be called fresh, was welcome. The car had been sitting in the sun for hours, and the air was still so hot it was almost suffocating. Kuroo turned left, out of the town and its little streets, and took the direction of Sendai.

“Wait! I think I forgot my phone!”

Without missing a beat, Kuroo and Yachi exchanged a fond smile, and Yachi got the phone from her pocket. She gave it to a very relieved-looking Bokuto, and Kuroo was looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

“And I almost thought you would remember before we left,” he teased, bringing his eyes back on the road.

“It's not a real holiday departure if everyone has everything,” Bokuto declared solemnly, crossing his arms.

“Is that why you forgot your clothes in Tokyo and made us turn back?” Kuroo asked with the most innocent tone he could manage.

Bokuto spluttered as the two others laughed, clutching his phone, and finally settled for sticking his tongue out at them. Yachi reached to pat his knee gently, her eyes on the map, and he leaned forward, his chin set down on her seat.

“This is going to be so long,” she whispered.

“We'll stop,” he reminded her. “But I still think we should get around Sendai in one go.”

“We'll see when we get there,” Kuroo shrugged. “It's going to depend on if there's traffic or not, anyway, and we can't know that until we're there.”

“You _did_ pack the sleeping bags, right?” Yachi suddenly questioned, her eyes turned to Bokuto.

“Well, uh, I think- yeah, yeah, they're in the back!”

“And the beach towels?”

“First thing I put in!”

“And the...”

They went back and forth, Yachi checking through her mental list once more, missing Kuroo shaking his head, a corner of his lips twitching up. She'd made them lay out everything that morning, and insisted Kuroo check after her in the house, but she couldn't help making sure again and again. And Bokuto really wasn't better, he thought, glancing at them, their faces so close an abrupt stop would probably smash them together. For all his pretending he didn't care, he knew he tended to forget things, and he'd listened intently when Yachi had checked the actual, neatly handwritten list she had this morning.

He took advantage of the moment and turned the radio on, going through the stations until he heard something he liked. The volume was low enough that they didn't notice right away, but he hummed along, fingers tapping on the wheel. He didn't really listen to their chatter, letting the music and the sound of their voices wash over him as he drove.

It took them half and hour to be done, and Yachi finally looked actually relaxed. Bokuto looked proud of himself at the announcement that he hadn't forgotten anything, and he pecked Yachi on the cheek before throwing himself back on his seat.

Kuroo smiled and counted – one, two…

“Kuroo what the _hell._ ”

“Aw, come on, you like them too,” Kuroo pouted, turning his face just enough that Bokuto could see it.

“Certainly not as much anymore, and you know why,” Bokuto accused, narrowing his eyes at his boyfriend.

“You can't _still_ be mad!”

“It was _cruel_ and completely unnecessary!”

“Unnecessary? When were you planning on moving out of the way?”

“When I would be functional!”

“I had class!”

“That's still the worst excuse you've ever tried on me!”

“ _The road!_ ” Yachi yelled when Kuroo suddenly turned, his finger raised at Bokuto in a way that was probably supposed to be imposing, but really looked very awkward since he was having trouble facing him.

“Sorry, sorry!” Kuroo apologized, turning back immediately.

Thankfully, the road was straight there, and the car hadn't swerved, but Yachi still looked terribly pale. She buried her face in her hands and exhaled deeply.

“We're going to die,” she announced, her faith in her prediction unwavering in the face of Kuroo's laugh and Bokuto's comforting hand on her shoulder.

* * *

 

They stopped once at a convenience store to use the toilets and buy what they would eat for dinner, then went on their way. They'd decided to avoid highways entirely, too expensive for their budget. Going through the small roads was going to be slow, but spending time together alone was pretty much the whole point, anyway. Their life in Tokyo could wait a bit more before they eased themselves back into it.

They switched drivers after two hours, and stopped for a few minutes to stretch their limbs and walk around. Kuroo had pulled into a side road and stopped next to an old shrine, under the shade of small trees. Bokuto went to stretch under one of them, spots of sunlight dancing on his face as he grimaced at the feeling of his left shoulder popping awkwardly. Yachi just enjoyed the smell of sun-dried grass and leaves, so much more pleasant than that of the inside of the too-hot car.

“I'm _so_ taking a nap,” Kuroo declared before he took his shirt off.

“What are you doing?” Yachi asked, surprised.

“I sweat too much, it's sticky,” Kuroo shrugged, rolling his T-shirt in a ball and throwing it in the back of the car through an open window.

“Oh, yeah, good idea!” Bokuto exclaimed as he did the same. “You should do it too, Yachi!”

“Oh, uh, I mean,” she stuttered, crossing her arms, “it wouldn't- it's not the same for a girl, you know.”

“Take your bra off, at least, you'll be more comfortable,” Kuroo suggested.

He opened the trunk and reached for a bottle of water in the cooler as Yachi's face reddened in embarrassment. Which, really, it shouldn't, they'd all seen each others naked, more than once, but she didn't seem to be able to shake off the part of her that still felt self-conscious about it.

“What if we meet other people? I would feel so awkward,” she worried, wringing her hands. “What if a police officer arrests us and we need to talk?”

“He would talk to Koutarou first,” Kuroo pointed out, “so don't worry, I think they'd have a lot to focus on before inspecting what you're wearing. Water?”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Bokuto frowned, taking the bottle.

“No, a compliment. You're so dashing anybody who would look at all _that_ ,” he gestured at the naked expanse of Bokuto's torso and his impressive arms, “would be absolutely blinded.”

“Thanks, man,” Bokuto grinned, handing the water to Yachi.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

She took a swig and forced herself to mentally list what she could about the situation. One, neither of them would care whatever her decision was or judge her. She hated that it was the first thing she thought about, and that she had to remind herself of that so often, about so many little things – what kind of coffee to bring them, blue or green curtains, sleeping in the middle or the side of the bed – but anxiety couldn't be helped, she guessed. And it was still nice to be able to be certain of it.

Back to the list. Two, they would most likely not talk to anybody for the rest of the day. They were going to drive, and when the sun would set, since none of them liked to drive at night, they would stop and camp somewhere. Somewhere could be in the most desert place they could find, if she asked, and so nobody but Bokuto and Kuroo would see her then.

Three, if by chance they did meet someone, Bokuto and Kuroo would probably handle the conversation and let her either hang back, or give her the time to dress up again.

Four, while going entirely topless was completely out of the question, she would feel weirdly out of place if she was the only one to stay dressed like she was. She knew she would – she got undressed with Kuroo every time they had a bit too much to drink, because he started feeling hot, so obviously the solution was to strip, and she felt the need to do the same, intoxicated or not. Bokuto usually managed to stop them before they did anything too mortifying. Or at least stop Yachi, because she would inevitably regret it once she sobered up – Kuroo didn't care so much about getting half-naked in public, so he usually came after in terms of priority. Granted, it was often around their friends, but still, Yachi didn't understand how he could be so casual about it. Even if he _did_ have a nice body. And he'd posed for her twice, so she knew _exactly_ how good he looked.

The list. Right. Five: it really was too hot to put up with a bra.

She drank the rest of the water and handed it back to Kuroo, who engaged in a riveting game of 3D Tetris to squeeze it back in with the rest. Yachi sneaked her hands under her sleeveless shirt while Bokuto came to Kuroo's rescue and took off her bra, folding it before putting it away her bag. She also rummaged through it for a hair tie, since the feel of her hair sticking to the back of her neck was unpleasant at best.

“Koutarou, can you help me with that?” she called.

Bokuto brightened at the sight of the hair tie and sauntered over her. He was surprisingly good with everything hair-related, and had learned tons of complicated hairdos after they'd all started helping each others get ready in the mornings. It was mostly a joyful mess, until Bokuto made them sit in front of the bathroom's floor-length mirror and did their hair. He never really got anywhere with Kuroo's perpetual bedhead, but he loved doing Yachi's hair and he'd learned increasingly intricate styles for her. She'd lie if she said she didn't miss the feel of his fingers threading gently in her hair on the mornings they missed each others, and his proud smile when he'd finished.

“Can you keep my hair up?” she asked, handing him the elastic and two hairpins she'd found buried in the glove box.

“Sure, just stay still for two minutes,” he assured her, and immediately started tweaking strands of her hair together.

“You're one to talk,” Kuroo snorted from behind them.

“Shut up,” Bokuto replied absently.

“I don't understand how you're so good with your hands. It's completely unfair,” Kuroo commented as Bokuto tied together the side-braids he'd created.

“You don't complain when I give you massages,” Bokuto pointed out. “All done!”

“Thank you!” Yachi smiled, stroking the braids with curiosity.

“Those aren't massages, they're aggressions,” Kuroo retorted as Yachi looked at herself in the rear-view mirror.

“It's so pretty, Kou!”

“I'll show you an aggression,” Bokuto mock-threatened.

“No, no, I take it back,” Kuroo tried to step away, “please don't do anything.”

He didn't manage to get away before Bokuto pounced on him, and they fell gracelessly onto the grass. Yachi turned around with a yelp and found them rolling on the ground, trying to get the upper hand on each other. She could hear them laugh, so she didn't worry much, and she let them have their fun as she went to get another bottle from the cooler. They'd probably appreciate it once they'd be in the car, and Bokuto didn't like to stop too often when he drove.

By the time she was done and closing the trunk, the yelling and laughing had turned to kissing noises, and sure enough, they were still lying down, limbs entangled, and apparently trying to see who could drool the most during a kiss. She was pretty sure Kuroo was winning.

“Tell me when you're reading to leave again,” she sighed.

It made them stop and look up, both sporting a half-sheepish expression.

“We're good to go,” Kuroo said, pushing Bokuto away so he could sit up.

They tried to wipe their faces, then suddenly realized they didn't have shirts to do so, and tried to use their arms. Yachi opened the back door without a word and threw them their already dirty clothes. Bokuto received his with a cheer, and Kuroo received his with his face.

“This smells so bad,” he complained, getting the drool off his face with it nonetheless.

“It just smells like you,” Bokuto remarked. “So you're the one who smells bad.”

“Everyone's sweat smells bad, not just mine.”

“Wrong. Yachi always smells good,” Bokuto announced, beaming at her.

“Don't bring me into this,” she said as firmly as she could. “Can we just get back in the car, please?”

“Aw, but you like when we're gross,” Kuroo smiled as he got up, brushing grass blades and soil off his pants.

“You're ignoring the context,” Yachi protested. “And I was _drunk_.”

“And we're forever using it against you,” Bokuto declared.

He hoisted her up in his arms and twirled with her twice before she couldn't repress her smile. He kept turning and kissed her twice, once on the mouth and once on the cheek, still a bit wet, and she tried to push him back with a giggle.

“Stop that, or your head will turn so much you won't be able to drive,” Kuroo ordered.

He tried to stop their movement by himself, opening his arms wide and ready to grab them, but Bokuto put just a little more force in his last spin and they ended up all falling in a pile. Miraculously, nobody hit their head again the car or the ground, but you could distinctly hear Kuroo's groan at being crushed under the weight of the others.

Yachi was the first to stand up, and she worriedly checked out her two boyfriends as they helped each other up. Kuroo was grimacing and holding his sides, but didn't wince more than usual when Bokuto slapped him in the back, seemingly unaffected by the fall.

“I hate you and all your muscles,” Kuroo mumbled.

“You're just jealous that you're so squishy,” Bokuto grinned.

He flexed, just to try and rile Kuroo up, but he didn't take the bait and only rolled his eyes.

“Boys. Car,” Yachi reminded them, pointing at it vehemently.

“Sorry,” they apologized in unison.

Bokuto gave his shirt to Kuroo and walked to the driver's side, dropping a kiss on Yachi's temple as he passed her. Kuroo wrinkled his nose at the T-shirts, and stuffed them in a corner at the back of the car. Yachi took the same seat again, and had their map in hand before she was even done clipping the seatbelt. They'd gone a bit off their itinerary, but she found the road where they'd stopped soon, and instructed Bokuto on which turns to take to fall back on their planned route.

Bokuto nodded to show he'd heard, but his eyes didn't leave the road. He reached for the radio and did the same thing Kuroo had done earlier, looking for music he liked. He settled on some kind of – Yachi had no idea how to describe it. Adventurous electro pop song? In any case, it sounded nice.

She twisted to get a glimpse of Kuroo. He was lying down on the back seats, holding a book above his head. Yachi recognized the cover of one of her favorite romance novels, and decided to let him read. Both he and Bokuto were in the process of reading her entire book collection, and the discussions it sparked never failed to entertain her.

Silence fell on the car, with the music as background sound, only broken by the sound of the pages Kuroo turned, absorbed by the book. Yachi tried to look at the ways they could go around Sendai, and to calculate the time they'd left before the sun was completely down. It was already inching down the horizon when they'd stopped, but then again, if nothing happened, other than slow traffic, nightfall would catch them after they were a few kilometers after Sendai.

“Kou,” she spoke up.

He stopped humming and turned down the music. She took a few seconds to look at him. There was something different in seeing him so still, so focused when he wasn't on a volleyball court. It wasn't to say it never happened, because he had his calmer moments in their everyday life, but she generally didn't get to appreciate it too long.

“Take the next left,” she finally said, shaking herself out of her daydreaming. “Are you tired?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. “I can probably go another hour, at least. Why?”

“We might have the time to get around Sendai before it's night.”

“Told you guys it would be better.”

“We still don't know what traffic's gonna be like,” she reminded him with a smile. “But yeah, I'd like it better too if we didn't have to stop next to it.”

“It's dumb,” Kuroo chimed in from where he was still lying down. “It doesn't change anything.”

“It's like crossing an obstacle, you feel better after,” Yachi explained.

“Yeah, and after that it's seaside driving for three hundred kilometers, too,” Bokuto added.

“Whatever. I'm not the one driving,” Kuroo grumbled.

“Oh! Does anybody want to drink?” Yachi suddenly exclaimed, remembering the bottle she'd taken in the car with her.

Kuroo sat up straight, ready to fight for his water.

“Yes please,” he whined, making grabby hands at her.

She laughed and fished the bottle out of her bag. She uncapped it and took a few gulps before handing it to Kuroo, because she knew her boyfriends. Sure enough, he drank half of it in one go, then tapped Bokuto on the shoulder with it. Bokuto kept his eyes on the road, but managed to get the bottle to his lips and drink everything left without spilling a drop.

“I was starting to think I would just dry out,” Kuroo sighed.

“You could have asked for water,” Yachi pointed out.

“I was busy reading,” he smiled, holding up the book. “And I didn't know you had a bottle.”

“You could have told us to stop and get one,” Bokuto countered.

“You don't like to stop when you're driving.”

“I'd have survived one interruption, Tetsu.”

Bokuto's voice _sounded_ like an eyeroll. Yachi had no idea how he could do that. Expressiveness to the point of transparency had its perks, apparently. Kuroo didn't seem to have anything to say back, and he settled for poking at Bokuto's cheek. It went on for thirty seconds before Bokuto turned his head slightly and pretended to bite on Kuroo's hand.

“Hey!”

“Where are you in the book?” Yachi asked, hoping to avoid them bickering while Bokuto was driving.

“She's slowly realizing her best friend might be a bit of an asshole. Took her long enough,” Kuroo huffed. “Please tell me she doesn't end up with the popular douche.”

“I'm not telling you the end! Read it if you want to know.”

“Fine, but I hope for you that the asshole dies alone and unloved at the end,” Kuroo mumbled. “Otherwise this isn't worth reading.”

He made himself comfortable, and stuck his tongue out at Yachi before starting to read again. Yachi smiled.

* * *

 

Contrarily to what they'd feared, getting around Sendai had been easy, and as they left the city behind them, Yachi let herself relax a bit. The rest of the road, until they approached Tokyo, should be peaceful. Well, as peaceful as things ever got when Bokuto and Kuroo were in the vicinity, but she'd learned to appreciate it. Even before they'd gotten together, when they'd only been neighbors, it had been nice to hear their voices through the wall, to know there were people here in case she had a problem, to know she wasn't completely alone.

They finally stopped a few minutes after seven. It was getting darker around them, even with the headlights. Bokuto parked on the side of the road on an abandoned field surrounded by tall pines, just across from a parking lot. The landscapes had been mostly rice fields and small towns, and Yachi knew these weren't far, but in the dark and surrounded by a small forest, the place felt like it was out of the human world.

They had caught glimpses of the sea on their way, and the smell of salt was in the air, just as present as the cries of seagulls. Yachi reveled in it. The salt and the seagulls, and the waves she could imagine if she closed her eyes, she associated to holidays spent with her grandparents, running on the beach without a care in the world. They'd gone camping a lot, too, when she was a child and they weren't as old, and she had liked it, but her favorite times were when they drove her to the pebble beaches to spend an entire afternoon looking at the sea.

And now the salt and the seagulls and the waves were here too, and they'd been there the week before, with Kuroo and Bokuto, and she was pretty sure those ten days spent alone with them were competing for the spot of best days of her entire life with the childhood holidays. Maybe they were winning, even.

Kuroo and Bokuto were getting their sleeping bags out of the trunk, as well as an old bed sheet so they wouldn't really sleep directly on the ground. The sky was clear, which was lucky for them, since they would have had to get all their stuff out of the car to reach the small tent they'd packed. Yachi grabbed the cooler, where their dinner had been waiting since this afternoon for them to devour it.

She didn't use to _devour_ food, but years spent in the company of growing teenage volleyball players had forced her to develop that ability. Some of them were quite adept at swallowing anything in their field of vision that looked remotely edible.

By that she meant that once Hinata and Kageyama had reached their second year, the food logistics of the Karasuno volleyclub had been a nightmare.

“There's more light on the other side,” Kuroo observed, pointing at the empty parking lot. “We could go eat there.”

“Why not here?” Bokuto asked, voice muffled as he was half into the trunk, looking for something.

“We can't see much because of the shadows,” Yachi nodded, giving some of the things she was holding to Kuroo. “I wouldn't want you guys to step on me by accident.”

“We wouldn't!” Bokuto protested, getting his head out of the car and barely avoiding a collision.

Yachi laughed and he realized she'd been joking.

“I got the blanket,” he said, brandishing an old and battered thing that had been his since he'd charmed his grandmother's knitting club at ten years old. “It's better than the ground.”

“We're washing it first thing when we're back,” Kuroo declared as they crossed the road. “We've spilled so many things on it this week, it's disgusting.”

“We could have washed it before leaving,” Yachi smiled, “if Koutarou hadn't hid it.”

“You don't _wash_ childhood memorabilia,” Bokuto pouted.

“It's going to start moving and say hello if you don't,” Kuroo sighed.

Bokuto tried to kick him, but Kuroo saw it coming and jumped ahead. They found a spot directly across the car and laid the blanket down, after Kuroo examined it to find the cleanest side. He and Yachi piled the food and drinks at the center and sat down. They'd all chosen their food at the store, so the repartition was quick. Yachi had felt a little nauseous from spending so much time in the car, but the smell of food opened her appetite, and soon they were all happily munching on it.

The sky was dark blue and you could barely see a sliver of light on the horizon, but a few stray clouds were colored bright orange and muted purple, bringing a touch of color. The first stars were appearing above them, and Yachi lost herself in their contemplation as she chewed.

“Wish you could get it in a picture?” Bokuto asked out of nowhere.

Yachi startled and almost spit her food out. He patted her on the back until she stopped coughing, accepting the water Kuroo was handing her.

“What?” she finally managed to say.

“You've been looking at the sky for like ten minutes,” Bokuto shrugged. “Usually, when you do that, you're thinking about how it would look even cooler if you could arrange the picture.”

“Well, I mean, it would be hard to get a _proper_ picture to work with,” Yachi explained, “since we only have our phones, and even harder to really take it all in, you know, the colors and the shapes, and the stars, even if I could probably make them a bit brighter.”

“So you _were_ thinking about it,” Kuroo grinned.

“A bit,” she admitted. “It's so pretty.”

They all turned their gaze back to the sky and were silent for a minute.

“Damn,” Kuroo sighed, “all three of us and not one with star facts.”

“Don't you have an astrology class?” Bokuto observed.

“Astrono _my_ ,” Kuroo corrected, “and it's all pretty basic. Sun is a star, stars are big fireballs, that kind of thing. I hope it's more interesting next semester, to be honest.”

“At least you don't need to work too hard for this one,” Yachi consoled him.

“Yeah, but it's boring. And you wouldn't _believe_ the number of people who look like they discovered just now that the sun doesn't orbit around the earth.”

“In college? That's sad,” Bokuto commented.

“It's sadder when you're the one to explain to people it's not true,” Kuroo sighed. “Oikawa would probably murder them, just for their ignorance. And I'd probably help him, actually.”

“Instead you're stuck explaining things to them, because you're too nice,” Yachi smiled as she stood up.

“Ugh, I know, don't remind me.”

The boys followed suit, and they started gathering whatever was left of their dinner – not much, apart from the plastic wrappings. Then Bokuto rolled up the blanket, and they crossed the road again. They'd only seen a few cars taking it, so Yachi hoped she and Kuroo wouldn't wake up during the night because of the noise. Bokuto slept like a log, and even earthquakes couldn't wake him up, but she was a light sleeper, and Kuroo, if he didn't have his two pillows on either side of his head, was actually pretty sensitive to noises.

Kuroo would probably just have stuffed everything back into the trunk and called it a day, but Yachi and Bokuto shooed him away. They liked their space well organized, thank you very much. He rolled his eyes but left them to it, and instead arranged the sleeping bags and the two pillows they'd have to share. Then he climbed in the back of the car, leaving the door open so the light wouldn't turn off, and grabbed the book again.

Yachi and Bokuto were done soon enough, but instead of closing it they sat on the small space left on the edge of the full trunk and talked, trying to decide what had been the best thing that had happened while they were staying at Yachi's grandparents' house.

“No. Thinking Kuroo was drowning definitely doesn't make the list,” Yachi declared, crossing her arms. “I was really scared.”

“Yeah, me too, but the fifteen minutes long hug was kinda cool, once we'd stopped crying.”

“I'm still not voting for it,” Yachi shook her head.

“Okay, what about the day we spent at the park?”

“You mean when you stopped everyone to pet their dogs?”

“You guys were right behind me!”

“They were so soft,” Yachi sighed.

“And so cute,” Bokuto sighed too.

They spent a minute reminiscing about dogs.

“That one at least makes it in the top three,” Bokuto decided.

“Or barely misses it.”

“Is anybody ever going to let that go?” Bokuto groaned.

“Probably not, but you can still hope,” Yachi laughed, taking his hand.

“And here I thought you were the nice one in this relationship,” Bokuto pouted, bringing her fingers to his mouth to kiss them.

“I guess you and Kuroo are starting to rub off on me,” she stuttered as he left a kiss on her palm.

Next was her wrist, and Yachi held her breath. She felt warm in the places where his lips touched her skin, and her heart skipped a few beats. Bokuto kissed his way up her arm, her shoulder, her neck, before reaching her mouth.

“We're not having sex,” she said as firmly as she could, because she wasn't sure that was what he was getting at, but sometimes Bokuto had Ideas, and you needed to make sure they didn't have the time to take root. Especially if the Idea was outdoor sex.

“I'm not asking for sex,” he laughed, and she relaxed. “It's just, you know, normal affection. But I can stop, if it bothers you,” he added, suddenly concerned.

“No, it's fine,” Yachi reassured him. “It's fine. I promise.”

Since Bokuto was still sitting on the car, she could stand up and kiss him back, softly, to show it really was fine. He pulled her closer and kissed her again.

Yachi had no idea how much time they spent like this, until the sound of something falling in the car made them jump in surprise.

“Tetsu?” Bokuto called.

There was no answer, and they rushed to the open door, only to find that Kuroo was asleep, and that the sound had been the book falling on the floor. Yachi felt the slight panic that had started to rise fade away as she took in the peaceful face of her boyfriend.

“Should we wake him up?” she whispered.

“The seats aren't very comfortable,” Bokuto whispered back, “and I'm not carrying him.”

“I don't think the ground will be better.”

“He'll be sleeping with us, of course it will be better!”

Yachi giggled, and the sound must have pulled Kuroo from sleep, because the next second he was sitting up, eyes half open and hair in even more of a disarray than usual. He blinked at them.

“What?” he tried to ask, but it came out sounding more like “'aaad”.

Bokuto started laughing too, and for a few seconds Kuroo squinted at them in confusion.

“You fell asleep, man.”

“Oh.”

“Time to go to sleep,” Yachi smiled.

Kuroo groaned and rubbed his eyes. He looked a bit more aware of what was going on when he looked up, but a lot less happy about being awake.

“Didn't brush my teeth,” he mumbled.

“We can do that now,” Yachi told him, and she went around the car to get the little case in which their toothbrushes and toothpaste had been carefully put away.

Bokuto had coaxed Kuroo out of the car but the time she joined them again, but kept the door open and the light on. They brushed their teeth quickly and in relative silence, washing their mouth with yet another water bottle. Bokuto and Kuroo took off their pants and slipped in the sleeping bags, but Yachi searched her bag. The T-shirt she'd kept with her to serve as a pajama was buried under the rest of her things, but she eventually managed to take it out. She took off her clothes too, and slipped the large T-shirt over her head. It was an old thing, soft and worn, with a faded band name on the front, that both Bokuto and Kuroo had worn until it mysteriously disappeared. They hadn't commented on it when they'd seen her sleep in it for the first time, just smiled.

She closed the car's doors and walked to her own bag. It was a bit too warm, so she battle with the zipper. She had it opened down to her waist when the car's light turned itself off, and then she wriggled closer to her boyfriends. Kuroo was on his back and probably already nodding off again, since he didn't say anything, and Bokuto was on his other side, an arm thrown over his chest. They were sharing one of the pillows, and Yachi had the other one all for herself. She reached for Bokuto's hand just above Kuroo's heart and he linked their fingers together. She nudged Kuroo's arm on her side until it was out of her way, and then, finally, she could settle herself for the night.

“Goodnight,” she murmured.

“Goodnight,” Bokuto answered.

Kuroo just snored, which made her smile, and she closed her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I say self-indulging fluff, I mean it. There isn't gonna be a lot of plot, it's just these three spending time together.
> 
> The updates won't be regular and I don't know how long it will take me to write the rest, but I'm absolutely certain I'll finish it, don't worry!
> 
> And like, if you liked it come talk to me and the three people who dragged me into this corner of rarepair hell on [tumblr!](http://asexualkurootetsurou.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 update: they're still cute and in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! I'm still writing! Life is full of things happening! Good and shitty things that take a lot of my time!
> 
> Anyway, here's a new chapter of Fluff: The Fic.

 

Yachi woke up with the sun and the birds, since they'd apparently managed to find a field bordered by trees on all sides _except_ the one facing east.

She had her head on Kuroo's chest, an arm thrown around his waist. He was breathing deeply, steadily, and she could hear his heartbeat if she concentrated. She leaned on her elbow to peer on Kuroo's other side. Bokuto had an arm and a leg intertwined with Kuroo's, and was otherwise taking full advantage of the free space around them.

She considered snuggling against Kuroo and going back to sleep, but she knew from experience she wouldn't be able to close her eyes again. Instead, she rolled over, careful not to get on Kuroo's arm, and opened her sleeping bag. It was more modesty than feeling cold that compelled her to get up and look for her clothes in the trunk, although the T-shirt was large enough on her that it covered the top of her thighs.

She appreciated the feeling of grass between her toes. It wasn't damp, just fresh, a pleasant contrast when the morning sun was already hot on her skin. She changed rapidly, putting on a light blue sundress, and already felt refreshed, though she would have appreciated a shower. She also brushed her teeth, trying to be as silent as possible, just in case she might wake up her boyfriends. The only sounds apart from those she was making were the joyful chirping of birds, probably sitting in the trees around the field.

Once she was done and had put everything away, she stopped a few seconds to look at Kuroo and Bokuto. They'd turned in their sleep, and they were nose to nose, limbs still so intricately entangled she had trouble telling which belonged to whom. The picture they formed was absolutely adorable, even more with their hair mussed up by the night of sleep – though in Kuroo's case, it was just as usual.

She tiptoed to her seat in the car and reached into her bag to get a small notepad and a pen. Her sketchbook was buried under their other stuff, so she had to settle for something else, and it wouldn't be something very clean or carefully done, but her fingers were itching to draw them.

She could have taken a picture to immortalize the moment, of course. It would be faster, easier than carefully tracing their faces on the cream-colored paper, but somehow, she felt that it wouldn't do it justice. There was something more satisfying, more intimate, to drawing them while she listened to the airy songs that filled the early morning.

She was adding the last details when Bokuto woke up. He sat up slowly and rubbed at his eyes with a sigh, then blinked several times, taking in the light. His eyes fell on Yachi, cross-legged on the grass in the same spot where she had lied all night, and gave her a smile still tinted with the last remnants of sleep.

“Morning,” he said.

“Hey,” Yachi echoed, softer.

Bokuto reached for her above Kuroo and she complied easily, leaning to give him a quick peck on the lips. He tried to take a look at the notepad, and she inclined it so he could see. His smile shifted when his eyes fell on the inked lines, became smaller, but his eyes were brighter.

“Sleep well?” Yachi asked, turned the notepad back in position to finish the drawing.

“Not bad,” Bokuto shrugged. “And you? I thought you would freak out with all the animal noises and all that.”

“I used to go camping when I was younger,” Yachi explained. “It never really bothered me after that.”

“Oh.”

Bokuto's face fell a little, like he was disappointed. Yachi tipped her head slightly, interrogative.

“Ah, it's just,” Bokuto stuttered, rubbing his neck. “Don't tell Kuroo, okay, but it took me hours to fall asleep, 'cause I jumped at every noise. I couldn't help but think there was a wild bear going to attack us or something.”

He looked so defeated that Yachi couldn't help but giggle. He sighed again, dejectedly.

“Don't worry,” she said, hiding her smile behind the notepad. “I'll protect you from the butterflies and the savage birds.”

“Thank you, my savior,” he replied as he stood up, pretending to swoon.

“Do I get a payment?”

“I can give you an advance in kisses,” Bokuto offered, puckering his lips and stepping closer.

Yachi laughed as he made kissing noises, and shoved her hands on his face to stop him. She only realized why it was a bad idea when his eyes twinkled and she felt his smile spread under her palm.

“No please don't li- that's disgusting, Kou,” she sighed as Bokuto licked her hand.

She took it back promptly and frowned as severely as she could, which wasn't much. She wiped the drool on the grass next to her and Bokuto went to the car. He grabbed his pants where he'd left them the night before and looked for clean underwear. Yachi, once her hand was dry and didn't feel gross anymore, picked up the pen again and added a few lines to Kuroo's hair. He was still sleeping soundly, spread on the ground and apparently not bothered by their absence.

“He's so cute when he's sleeping,” Bokuto commented right behind her.

She looked up, surprised. He hadn't made a sound, his steps practically silent on the soft ground. He had his toothbrush in one hand and toothpaste in the other, but his eyes were fixed on Kuroo. He'd lowered his voice just enough that it didn't feel like it was cutting through the atmosphere, but rather blended in.

“You think he's cute all the time,” Yachi smiled.

“True, but it's even better when he's not talking,” Bokuto replied, grinning at Yachi's fond eyeroll.

He still hadn't put a shirt on, but the morning breeze didn't seem to bother him. He walked around as he brushed his teeth, under Yachi's gaze. Her drawing was complete, and the notepad lying across her legs. A car passed them on the road, and Kuroo groaned at the noise, but didn't give any more indication that he was aware of the world around him.

“I'm gonna go pee, I'll be right back!” Bokuto called, before walking toward the treeline.

Yachi almost shouted back a gentle mockery about dangerous animals, like bunnies, that could lie between the trees, but by the time she had the sentence, Bokuto was out of her sight. She would have done the same, if she didn't strongly prefer using actual toilets, and they would have to stop at a kombini for breakfast anyway. The only thing they had in the cooler, besides water, were a packet of cookies and a half-empty box of ice cream that they hadn't finished before leaving the house. Not much for breakfast, especially not for three.

Bokuto came back and made a stop by the car, fishing the bottle of hand soap he always had in the driver's door before joining her in her contemplation of Kuroo. He offered her the bottle and squeezed a small amount of gel in her open hand. She rubbed her hands absently, her mind on its way a millions miles away as she let her eyes linger on the trees and the sun rays filtering through them. She barely noticed when Bokuto came back after putting the bottle away and settled behind her, just slightly leaned in.

He started talking, a practically uninterrupted stream of words conveying the multitude of his thoughts, stepping on each others inside his head in their urge to get first, get out. It was about his dreams, about a tree he'd noticed yesterday, about the classes he still had homework for. She listened, paying enough attention that she could catch what sounded important, but didn't offer much in the way of answers.

They did that a lot, when it was only the two of them. Kuroo could stay focused, listen intently and follow the conversation without forgetting the point halfway through, but Bokuto was always vibrating with ideas and memories and stories, jumping from one to the other, and Yachi, as much as she tried, only could take in so much before her mind wandered, sorting through her various assignments, the call she had to make to the garage that was fixing Kuroo's car (the battery was dead, he'd had to run for his train that morning), the grocery list for next week, finding a day for Hinata and her to hang out when they were both free.

But it worked for them. Bokuto talked, because if he didn't share, the buzzing was unbearable, and she listened as much as she could, focusing in and out of the conversation, offering small nods as the words flew around her, soft and familiar and comforting. It filled the silence that neither of them liked very much.

* * *

 

Kuroo eventually woke up – or at least gave indication that he was waking up, groaning and very obviously displeased with the world in general, and this morning in particular, for no other reason that he wasn't asleep anymore. Yachi and Bokuto stopped their discussion and watched him turn to try to shield his eyes from the light, to no avail. He frowned and finally opened his eyes, squinting at them from under his fringe.

“Ugh.”

Which was, in all fairness, his usual reaction to being awake. If this was just another lazy morning at home, they'd have let him take his time, but the sun was already climbing in the sky, and Yachi _really_ wanted to pee. And they were hungry, too.

“You have to get up, Tetsu,” Yachi encouraged him. “At least so we can start cleaning up.”

Another noise of general grumpiness answered her, but after a few seconds, Kuroo rolled away from the sheet  and the pillows , though he was still buried in his sleeping bag.  Bokuto snorted as he got up, and Yachi felt the corners of her mouth tug up.

“Come on, man, get _up_ ,” Bokuto ordered, kicking lightly in the Kuroo-shaped lump.

“Fuck off,” came the muffled but still distinctly vindictive response.

“I have the power here, I'm the one who's already awake, and ready to drag you out,” Bokuto argued, and after a minute of consideration, Kuroo seemed to give up.

“ _Fine_.”

He wriggled out of his sleeping bag and Bokuto helped him stand up, gently  pushing him toward the car.

“And don't forget to brush your teeth!” he called after him, earning a surprisingly accurately aimed middle finger in his direction.

“Can you come help me?” Yachi asked, rolling her own sleeping bag, and Bokuto came to do the same with his.

They stole a few glances at Kuroo, who was obviously only managing getting dressed because he'd perfected the motions through the years. He squinted at the shirt in his hands and apparently decided to wear it like Bokuto, that is to say not at all.

“I'm doing Kuroo's bag, you get the sheet?” Bokuto offered.

“Okay.”

Yachi made quick work of the sheet, and it was soon neatly folded next to the three sleeping bags and the two pillows. Kuroo had made a quick visit in the woods and brushed his teeth, and he sat in the car as they loaded their things back into the trunk, over the bag with their clothes for the trip, and other amenities, but so that the cooler wasn't covered.

“I'm not fucking driving,” Kuroo declared, still rubbing at his eyes.

“I'll take this morning, then,” Yachi announced.

It took her a few minutes to get the seat how she wanted it, since her boyfriends' settings were definitely not adapted to her, and then they were on their way, Kuroo and Bokuto both in the back. Bokuto had his arm around Kuroo's shoulder, and Kuroo was half leaning into him, eyes closed, like he was trying to get as much rest as he could. Bokuto's fingers were trailing lightly one Kuroo's bare skin, as he looked out at the scenery through the window.

They stopped at the first kombini she saw, after Yachi made them put a shirt on, for decency's sake. They dug out those they'd discarded the day before and deemed them clean enough to wear, though there had been an argument about who would wear which. Bokuto had won, threatening to tickle Kuroo, and they'd dressed _before_ getting out of the car, at her insistence. She used the toilets, and the boys grabbed in their bag what they'd need to clean themselves a bit at the sink. She joined them and washed her face while Bokuto was, as usual, attempting to brush Kuroo's hair, with absolutely no effect.

“I think we need to give up,” Kuroo sighed, a bit more awake now.

“Never. I'm not being defeated by your stupid hair,” Bokuto countered, putting the brush away nonetheless.

“Yours isn't better,” Kuroo grinned, ruffling it despite Bokuto's indignant shout.

“Hitoka! Come here, _your_ hair never fails me!” Bokuto whined, making grabby hands at her.

“Hey, _I_ deserve a kiss! I let him pull my hair out for like five minutes!” Kuroo exclaimed, throwing himself on Bokuto's back in an attempt at subduing him.

Someone pounded on the door then, no words necessary to understand the impatience of the person. They broke the pseudo fight and gathered their things before striding out of the room, Bokuto and Kuroo with big obnoxious smiles, and Yachi burying her face in her hands. The employee looked at them with a fairly persistent stare as they paid for the food they'd grabbed for the day, and that was too much judgment for her. She started apologizing in a low mumble, and Kuroo immediately dragged her away as Bokuto handled the end of the transaction.

“You know you don't have to apologize for everything, right?” he asked, only half-joking. “We talked about this.”

“Well, you and Kou could stand to feel a little more ashamed at times, so it evens out,” she said, voice muffled by her hands. “And did you see how he looked at us?”

“Hitoka-”

“I know!”

She took a deep breath and finally allowed Kuroo to part her hands, uncovering her defeated face. She'd tried to part ways with the habit in high school, and again in college, with encouragements from her friends and her boyfriends, but apologizing for others and herself in the face of the slightest disapprobation was an attitude that had stuck through everything. To be fair to herself, she'd needed the skill ready and honed while she was responsible for her Karasuno teammates, and while Bokuto and Kuroo usually took responsibility for themselves, they still sometimes needed her to keep them in check.

“It's just someone we don't know in a town we'll never come back to, okay?” Kuroo said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “And I'm sure he doesn't think anything bad, he was just annoyed because of the noise. Or maybe he thought that if we did something wrong then he'd have to clean up, but we didn't, so it's all fine, okay?”

“But the people behind us, too,” Yachi lamented, letting her head fall into her hands again. “We were so rude!”

Kuroo didn't seem to have an answer all ready, and he hesitated.

“Okay, maybe we didn't need to take the entire room for ourselves for so long, but you gotta be selfish sometimes,” he shrugged. “And I really forgot there were other people behind that door.”

“Me too. We're the worst.”

“You guys literally get emotional because of commercials,” Bokuto chimed in, having finally caught up with them, a bag in each hand. “You're gonna need to make some efforts to be the worst.”

“I'm not sure that's a criteria to judge people,” Kuroo remarked as Yachi peeked between her fingers.

“Have you ever seen a villain cry at a commercial? No. Demonstration done. Now can you guys help me put all this,” Bokuto lifted the two bags, “in the car, or are you just going to stand there and look pretty?”

“I kind of like the second option. What do you think, Hitoka?” Kuroo grinned, wrapping his arms around Yachi in tight hug.

“Is this because I forced you to get up?” Bokuto asked, getting his face and Kuroo's very close all of a sudden, Yachi sandwiched between them.

“I would never get my revenge in such petty ways,” Kuroo lied through his teeth, a large smile plastered on his face.

“Be grateful I didn't just dump water on you.”

“I would have kicked your ass.”

“I'd like to see you try! You almost missed the car when you tried to get your clothes!”

“Guys! I need to breathe!” Yachi reminded them.

She appreciated being pressed between them, but not in a public parking on an already hot day, when her stomach was starting to growl aggressively.

“Shit, sorry!” they both exclaimed, jumping back to give her space.

“Let's just leave and find somewhere to eat,” she sighed.

Bokuto put away the bags and Yachi drove them away from the kombini as fast as she could. Kuroo didn't comment, but shifted in the passenger seat to briefly squeeze her hand. Bokuto had resumed his intent watching of everything outside the car, practically stuck to the window. They understood why when he let out a gleeful yell.

“ _The sea!_ ”

“You've been seeing it every day for a week, Kou,” Yachi smiled, glancing at him in the central mirror.

“But I never get tired of it,” Bokuto sighed, rolling down the window.

He leaned half outside, inhaling as deeply as he could. They were only a few hundred meters away from the rocky cliffs that dropped into the waves, and the horizon of water a little further was glittering under the sun.

“We could stop here,” Kuroo proposed, turning to Yachi.

“We'll see if there's somewhere we can park,” she nodded.

She slowed down, and eventually left the road about a kilometer further, stopping on a patch of sandy ground. The cliffs had lowered to eventually form a soft slope that met the sea after a thin band of sand. There were a few seaweeds that had been brought there and left behind by the tide, but the ground a bit higher, where they'd parked, was covered in grass and comfortable enough to sit. They fished their breakfast out of the cooler and ate with energy. Bokuto was almost reverently silent at times, between the little bouts of discussions, eyes fixed on the blue horizon, and barely even uttered a word when they climbed back in the car and Yachi led them along the inshore road.

She understood his fascination with it. It wasn't as if they'd never seen it before, of course, but watching the waves crash against the piers in Tokyo Bay, and watching them gently lick up the sand and the rocks here, in a lost portion of the road, was completely different.

Soon, however, they had to take a road farther from the coast, and lost sight of the sea. Bokuto was torn away from his contemplation. He sighed and threw his arms around Kuroo's seat, a blissful smile stretching his lips.

“You know, I think I've never been happier,” he laughed, his breath ruffling Kuroo's hair.

“If watching the sea is all it takes, you can do that at home, too,” Kuroo pointed out, reaching for Bokuto's face with his left hand.

“No, I meant,” Bokuto hesitated, catching Kuroo's hand with his. “It's not just the sea. I mean, I'm happy when we win a match, and when we're all home watching your dumb shows, and when I get an answer on a test right, but.”

He turned toward Yachi, and she knew, though she couldn't see it, that his eyes were wide open, focused on her. It didn't make her as nervous as it used to.

“I mean, it's different. This whole week has been different. We didn't even do anything really special or unusual, but I'm here with you both and I'm just – happy,” he murmured. “You _make_ me happy.”

His voice was almost small, compared to his usual booming tone, but every word rang in Yachi's entire body. Bokuto was caressing Kuroo's hand absently, stroking with his thumb with the same delicateness he used when petting small animals. Like it could break between his fingers.

“Feels like it's never going to fade away,” Bokuto murmured.

For a few heartbeats, all you could hear was the swoosh of wind coming through the open windows, and the low hum of the engine. For all that the car was going forward, it felt like the world had slowed down, giving Bokuto's words the deference they deserved, giving them the time to sink in and engrave themselves into the fabric of the universe.

The strident cry of a lone seagull called them back to reality, and Yachi slowed down on a straight portion of the road to look at her boyfriends. Kuroo had turned his face away, but the tip of his ears was red, and he was holding Bokuto's hand so tightly it seemed painful. Bokuto just smiled at her, and she smiled back. She almost reached out to touch him, before she remembered she was driving.

“I know,” she said, looking at the road again.

* * *

 

They stopped for lunch on a sand beach, barely a hundred meters wide. They weren't alone, since the occupants of the two cars they'd parked next to were there too, but far away enough on the other side of the beach that it still felt like privacy, even though their children were running around with delighted cries. Bokuto was less mesmerized by the sea now, though he still frequently glanced at it. Yachi was nestled between Kuroo's legs, naked toes buried under the sand. Kuroo was eating with one hand, while his other arm held her tight against him around her waist.

“I just don't think cats have a concept of equality,” Bokuto commented thoughtfully between two mouthfuls.

“It's because we never see them in groups,” Kuroo shrugged. “People usually have one or two, so it's not really, like, a cat society.”

“Yeah, but even in shelters they're supposed to be really individualistic, so I don't think they would really care about justice or social order,” Bokuto pointed out.

“Just because you care more about yourself doesn't mean that you don't care about what happens with others,” Kuroo countered, nearly hitting Yachi with a large hand gesture. “Sorry. But really, I'm not saying they have _tribunals_ , but some kind of idea of equality, yeah.”

“That's assuming they even have a conscience, dude. You've read too many of these cats clans books or whatever,” Bokuto snorted.

“They're my books and they're really good,” Yachi protested.

“I just mean he's taking them too seriously.”

“Dude, _you_ were hoping you'd get a Hogwarts letter for _months_ after you read Harry Potter.”

“You weren't supposed to tell anyone!”

“I'd have found out sooner or later,” Yachi tried to comfort him, reaching to pat his ankle. “I did, too.”

She heard Kuroo chuckle above her, then he bent slightly to kiss her hair.

“You guys are adorable,” he said, “but I'm still right about cats.”

“We can look it up when we're home,” Yachi sighed before Bokuto got sucked into the debate again.

“What do _you_ think?” Bokuto asked instead, narrowing his eyes at her.

She took a second to sit up straighter, as she has started to slip on the sand, and chewed slowly.

“I think they can't have developed an actual _concept_ of anything, because they're animals, but maybe they act on something that _we_ , as humans, would call justice. I don't think they know about equality, though.”

“Ugh, get off me, you traitor,” Kuroo ordered as he tightened his grip around her, tucking her head under his chin.

Yachi let out a noncommittal hum and finished her food. Both Kuroo and Bokuto were already done, and they engaged in a thumb battle to decide who would drive that afternoon. Bokuto won, mostly because Kuroo tried not to move too much in case it disturbed Yachi, and Bokuto hadn't hesitated to take full advantage of it. She moved away before they tried a rematch and threw sand at each other.

“I'm taking the back, I want to take a nap,” she announced as she stretched.

“Oh, I'll sit with you!” Bokuto exclaimed, jumping to his feet and offering his arm to Kuroo.

“Why are you leaving me alone in the front,” he sighed, taking Bokuto's hand.

“You can listen to what you want like this, don't be mad,” he said, kissing the fake affronted frown off Kuroo's face.

Yachi shook her head fondly and tried to brush the sand off her before walking to their car. It was alone now, though she hadn't noticed the other people leaving. She walked on the grass, meticulously wiping the grains of sand still sticking to her feet before she put her shoes on again. Bokuto and Kuroo weren't far behind her, bumping against each other on the small path between the road and the beach. There was a sudden gust of wind as she opened the back door, making her dress flutter, and she had to protect her face from her hair with her hand. She heard Bokuto laugh, and when she turned he was looking at her, Kuroo at his side trying to hide his smile with his hand.

“You have a, a,” he muttered, pointing at his own hair.

Yachi slid her fingers back and came back with a handful of small white feathers. She stuck her tongue at her mocking boyfriends and tried to get all of it off her hair, which took her a few minutes. She wondered if there had been a nest nearby, until Kuroo pointed at the culprit – a pile of feathers of all sizes and shapes on the side of the road, where one of the other cars had been parked.

“Probably one of the kids,” he shrugged, picking one last feather off Yachi's head. “Too bad, it was a good look on you,” he grinned.

She rolled her eyes and Kuroo tried to tickle her with the feather. She snatched it out of his hand expertly, and Bokuto called them from the other side of the car, asking what was taking so long.

“Nothing,” Kuroo yelled back, and he bent down to kiss Yachi before taking his seat.

She slid into the car as Bokuto clipped his own seat belt. He'd taken the seat at the other end, so she shuffled to the middle one, pushing all the stuff they'd already accumulated there on the last seat. Kuroo rolled down the windows, adjusted the seat, and then they were on their way. He didn't need a copilot; their road for the day was straight south.

Yachi leaned against Bokuto, who put his arm around her shoulders and let her wriggle until she was comfortable. She embraced him, let her head rest again his chest, and closed her eyes, letting the songs coming from the radio and Bokuto's heartbeat lull her to sleep.

* * *

 

She woke up in the middle of the afternoon, groggy and sore, as Kuroo pulled them in front of a kombini and announced a quick stop for basic needs. She climbed in the back again after that and let herself fall into Bokuto's embrace, still half in the realm of dreams as Kuroo drove along the path between the sea and the forest. The car was almost silent, as Bokuto had plugged his headphones into his phone early on and was listening to an audiobook. He used to be impatient with them, preferring to read it himself, but had changed his mind when he'd realized listening meant his hands were free, and _that_ meant _multitasking_. He'd started by listening to them on his morning runs, and then little by little, he'd found himself with a truly impressive stock of audiobooks.

Yachi would have asked if they could share her earphones instead, but the quiet of the car suited her just as well, and she didn't feel much like moving. And it always felt like some kind of transgression to interrupt Bokuto when he was focused on something.

Kuroo hummed the melody of every song that he heard, tapping the wheel in rhythm with his fingertips. He saw her watching him in the rear view mirror and smiled at her, but didn't say a word, content to drive in almost silence.

It reminded Yachi of those afternoons they'd spent together, even before they'd _been_ together, sometimes in her apartment but mostly in theirs. There was always a pretext, a reason, just in case anyone asked, or maybe to justify it to themselves, but they would find themselves sitting in the living-room-slash-bedroom more often than not, doing homework or watching TV, with a few words here and there, soft in the quiet tranquility that permeated the air. She used to watch them, watch how they interacted, how instinctively they acted around each other, and wish she could have that, too – and before she'd realized, she had been part of it.

Bokuto never failed to become restless after a while, and that was when they'd finally get up, go out, or maybe prepare dinner. But she loved those moments, and she knew Kuroo did, too – just the pleasure of being together, no pressure, nothing else. In hindsight, they'd really been _living_ together, with a place for her slowly being carved into Bokuto and Kuroo's everyday life as days passed, but at the time, she'd been too busy falling in love with them to be aware of that.

It made sense, then, that this quiet moment too was interrupted by Bokuto, who sighed, plugged his headphones out and asked “Are we there yet?” with the most desperate tone he could manage. Kuroo laughed and she smiled, planting a kiss on Bokuto's shoulder as Kuroo answered.

“I think I'll stop in half an hour. Why, getting hungry?”

“Starving,” Bokuto replied. “And I really want to get out of the fucking car and walk around, too.”

“Is Hitoka too heavy for you? And here I thought you were the strongest person in this relationship,” Kuroo teased him.

“Tetsu, I haven't moved in _hours_ ,” Bokuto whined. “Stop making fun of my suffering.”

“Never.”

Bokuto was lifting his leg to kick Kuroo when Yachi put her hand on his knee, gently bringing it down.

“Don't make us crash,” she mumbled in his chest.

“It would be Kuroo's fault, he's the one driving,” Bokuto declared, absently trailing his fingers up and down Yachi's arm, like he'd done to Kuroo that morning.

“Pretty sure if you're the one distracting me, you've got a part of responsibility too,” Kuroo observed.

“If we're dead, it doesn't matter, so _don't make us crash_ ,” Yachi insisted.

Her words left the boys speechless for a second. She was still half closing her eyes, snuggling against Bokuto, so she missed the surprised look they exchanged.

“I guess that's true,” Bokuto said, “but wow, are you feeling alright?” She reluctantly looked up, meeting his sincerely concerned gaze. “You're usually less blunt,” he explained, his worried frown pulling lower.

“I just don't usually say everything that goes through my head,” she confessed, “but, uh, death-case scenarios are something I'm always prepared for. It's a habit,” she explained, feeling like she should be embarrassed about it.

“Do you really think about that stuff all the time?” Bokuto asked, eyes widening as she nodded. “You're worse than Kuroo, I can't believe it. And I thought _he_ was anxious.”

“It's not like we didn't _know_ you were,” Kuroo chimed in, turning down the radio. “But I didn't think it went that far. Terrible failure, yeah, but death...”

Yachi detached herself from Bokuto and sat upright, though he seemed displeased to let her go. She took his hand in hers to appease him, stroking his palm.

“It's okay,” she sighed. “It's not all the time, it just – comes up regularly, I guess. Technically, I know, we could all die anywhere at anytime anyway, and we can't do anything about it, but I can't just _not_ think about it, either. I know most of it is really far-fetched,” she admitted, “so I ignore it. It just came out because I was sleepy.”

Bokuto looked ready to cry and pull her into one of his bear hugs, but she smiled, tilting her head to the side.

“If anything,” she confessed in the silence of the car, “it makes me even more grateful of every moment I can spend with you.”

Bokuto couldn't hold himself back and she _did_ end up crushed between his arms and his chest, but she didn't mind – it had been a long time since she had. She patted him gently on the back, murmuring comforting nothings in his ear. She didn't miss the way Kuroo looked at her in the mirror, like a question that waited to be shaped into words. She smiled in answer, eyes still locked in the mirror, one of those smiles they shared only between them, that only they understood. Bokuto straightened up, away from her, but she didn't look at him yet. Kuroo nodded, just once, but seemed satisfied as he focused completely on the road again.

Bokuto had waited for the end of their exchange, but he had placed both of his hands on her shoulders and was looking at her straight in the eyes, dead serious.

“I understand that you're a responsible person who has learned to deal with it,” he started, “but it's really bleak and depressing, so if it ever becomes too much, you absolutely have to come talk to us, okay?”

“That's what I've been doing. You helped a lot,” she assured him. “But thanks,” she added, linking their fingers tightly. “It's sweet.”

Bokuto looked like he wanted to keep talking about it, but didn't fight the end Yachi had put to the conversation. Kuroo turned the radio back on. His face gave nothing away under the orange sunlight of the evening, but Yachi was pretty sure he would want to say more about this, too. It could wait, she decided.

The end of the ride was spent in near silence, apart from a few teasing exchanges between Bokuto and Kuroo. They decided to stop on a cliff covered in thick grass, just far away enough from the edge that nobody risked falling down, on the rocks and into the sea during the night. There was a forest on the other side of the road, the light barely filtering through the tall trees, which made it dark already. Between stepping out of the car, stretching, walking around, they seemed to have regained their usual balance again, the atmosphere from the car dissipating under the sound of the waves and the cries of the seagulls. Dinner was even more lively than usual, since Bokuto had finished first and Kuroo and Yachi had to push him away from their own food. He, invariably, came back laughing and ready to try a new tactic, but seemed to subdue after Kuroo threatened to come after him with his plastic fork.

Not that the threat was terrifying, but Kuroo could be, and Kuroo wanted to eat in peace.

After they put everything away, they settled as close to the end of the cliff as they dared, which meant Kruoo and Yachi were sitting one or two meters away, and kept a worried eye on Bokuto who was literally looking down at the waves, though admittedly lying down on the grass and not with his feet ready to betray him and make him fall. Still, Yachi would have preferred it if he was closer to them.

She had grabbed her drawing notebook, and so she drew, shapes without limits other than those of the paper, what she remember of the beach they'd stopped at for lunch, details of the interior of the car she had noticed. She had no color to add here, and promised herself to get her watercolor pencil first thing when they'd get back.

In between every bigger drawings were little faces, that anybody not familiar with the persons would have recognized by their hair anyway. Kuroo and Bokuto covered her pages, sometimes with little bubbles of words encouraging her – which they _did_ do, often. Sometimes they were just there, smiling. Sometimes they were expressions she remember from conversations they'd had. Sometimes – sometimes what she got the most right were their eyes, filled with the affection she knew they had for each others and for her. Those were her favorites, almost pieces by themselves. She could only hope that she was able to convey to them that she felt the same.

Kuroo was a warm presence next to her, still absorbed in her book, and welcome with the light chill of the night. Bokuto did get up, after a while, and drifted back to them, sitting on Yachi's other side and immediately asking her questions about her drawings. Some of them she'd already answered, but he had a way of asking, of thinking about a new detail she hadn't talked about, that made it all exciting instead of tiring. Kuroo eventually gave up on reading and joined in, his eyes softer whenever he paused to look at them. It felt almost too intimate to bear, and Yachi always turned her eyes away, though it never made her feel nervous.

The sun was long gone by the time they dug out their sleeping attire and fell in place together, Kuroo and Bokuto pushing Yachi in the middle for the night.

“You're going to wake up and think you've rolled over me _again_ ,” she tried to protest, the effect somewhat lessened by a huge yawn.

“Nah, we know you can bench press us now,” Kuroo smiled, leaning down to kiss her forehead as Bokuto laid down.

Yachi knew what this was about. If they couldn't make her feel better by talking, then it would have to be cuddling, or something along that line of thinking. She wasn't sure it mattered that she didn't really need to _feel_ _better_ – it wasn't how it worked. And, anyway, she wasn't sure she _could_ feel better.

“You don't have to do this,” she tried again nonetheless.

“We want to,” they replied in unison, without missing a beat.

After a second of amused surprised, Bokuto was the first to break into a laugh, soon followed by the other two, and Yachi stopped protesting. She did like being between them, and so she turned on her side, facing Kuroo and letting Bokuto wriggle behind her and hold her close, her back to his chest.

Kuroo was sleepy and after a whisper of _goodnight_ , he was gone. Yachi could still feel that Bokuto was awake, his breathing far too controlled to be anything else.

“Still afraid of the terrible creatures of the night?” she murmured, holding his hand close to her face so he could feel her smile.

“Shut up,” he mumbled, his thumb lightly brushing her lips, “that's mean, Hitoka.”

She laughed, just a shake of shoulders, and let the sounds of the night lull her to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it, it was a bit difficult to write for me and I'm not entirely satisified but if I spend anymore time on it I'm going to scream.
> 
> The next chapter likely will take some time as well, since I have other life and writing comittments that I have to prioritize, but it will come, I promise.


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